JOHN HARLE – The Concept Of Art Music

Saxophonist John Harle should really need to introduction. He has an enviable reputation as a classical musician, and has worked extensively in the world of contemporary jazz and popular music. As well as being a virtuoso performer, he has also been commissioned as a composer and writes the music for the BBC drama Silent Witness, and this month sees the release of his latest project Art Music featuring the remarkable vocal talents of Marc Almond (full review can be found in October’s CD Reviews).Conceived as a concept album Art Music is Harle’s personal musical vision of the links between the visual and aural art, and he has composed pieces that are inspired by five of his favourite artists who are either British or have strong ties with the British Isles. The resultant album is as big, bold and vivid as the paintings themselves.

When the opportunity presented itself to talk to John Harle about Art Music I begin by asking why he chose to record a concept album, and the inspiration behind it? “I grew up in a time of the invention of the 'concept album' and I don't think I've ever got away from the idea that an album is both a 'fantasy' and a 'journey'”, says Harle. “I know that's probably outdated now in the age of downloading single tracks and attention spans the length of a television commercial, but I'm sticking to the idea that an album has to mean more than a collection of tracks. The 'concept' itself, of art and music combined is something I've thought about since being at school, where we were encouraged to paint abstract pictures to Pink Floyd by our art master, Kevin Egan-Fowler. Art Music is that process in reverse!”Perhaps somewhat unusually for a proposed concept album some of the compositions already had a life before Art Music, and were not as is often the case written especially for the recording, as John explains “The Lucian Freud tracks are from my score to the BBC2 documentary 'Lucian Freud - Painted Life' in reworked, album versions, and the David Hockney 'Arrival of Spring' tracks are groundwork for a feature-documentary I'm scoring in the Spring. 'Innocent' is a piece I've played live many times and was written for the Deal Festival. The 'Arcadia' piece was written for the Craxton Trust, and performed at the Craxton house in Hampstead. 'In Nomine' was the only piece that had it's genesis for the album directly.”One of the strengths of the project is that each of the five ‘suites’ have a completely mood and different feel to them, as indeed do the paintings represented, but all fit together to form a cohesive whole. With this in mind, I ask John how he approached the compositions for each of the movements. “I don't preconceive compositional processes” he replies, “I work on instinct. That doesn't mean that I 'reinvent' my music for each piece, because a composer can only do what they can do, but it does make the process ofcomposition exciting and risky. Sometimes it works amazingly and sometimes not - I often scrap pieces and start again after a break and go back to the beginning. If my music doesn't fully represent the emotion I feel - in this case the same emotion I feel when looking at a painting, it's failed, and I start again. I'm also a ruthless editor and producer of my own work - I cut and cut until the music is at its bare bones. When I think I've finished a piece, I listen to my music as if it's a piece by someone else and remorselessly criticise it. I then trust my instincts enough to act on that criticism, and get rid of any indulgence that I think bores me, and I presume, the listener.”

Combined with the compositional content another important factor that gives the music on album its unique character and life is in the orchestration and arrangement, so how did he decide on the instrumentation for each of the individual movements? After some consideration, John replies “Quite a lot of Art Music has a 'band' feel and my core musician friends are there on the album, as on most albums, but I don't feel the need to stick to that. I love studio technique, and learn more and more about it. So even though the same players may be there on many different tracks, the 'sound' is different - altered in a way that I think is appropriate to the piece. I allocate a certain amount of time on each piece to discovering that sound-world in a technical, electronic way - I'm using more and more old gear and plug-ins in the studio. For example, the whole album was put through a 1960's 1/4 inch magnetic tape simulator to give it a sonic unity that we don't hear that that often on digital albums.”

Throughout Art Music the music holds together seamlessly as a concept and is best heard as whole as opposed to listening to individual movements or tracks. Of the two shorter pieces ‘In Nomine’ is quite a departure, and Innocent’ enters a sound world all of its own, but are absolutely right in their placement, and provide a darker and starker side to the music, and I ask the saxophonist if he was happy with the final result. “Yes definitely”, enthuses Harle, “The album seems to work as a journey of about an hour, but within that the sections are very different, as the paintings are different. In the hour's listening, of course 'Arcadia' overbalances the rest of the works in terms of length - it's about 21 minutes - but ‘Arcadia’ is a concert piece placed at the end of the album in order to give coherence and a sense of 'home' in the sound and the music. I think at that point in the album, the listener will (hopefully) enjoy a more extended piece. ‘In Nomine’ is there as a homage to the sixteenth century practice of composers writing pieces against a 'given' sequence of notes which was defined by John Taverner (1490-1545). The main theme, introduced by Sarah Leonard at the beginning is continued throughout the piece on different instruments, and it's quite tricky to get right - if youdepart from that tune, it's wrong, so the exercise is to make something interesting out of repetition. ‘Innocent’ was composed entirely without musicians - only with samples. I found this curiously liberating - I was dealing with the 'finished product' from the outset. Bypassing the process of turning a 'composition' into a 'recording' by recording musicians taught me a huge amount. This was also a piece that I edited brutally. It started off at about eleven minutes, and finished up at about six.”One of my first recollections of hearing Harle was on a short documentary on BBC2 called Pitch Invasion, which featured John playing soprano saxophone on pieces fromChick Corea’s composition Children’s Songs. During the programme John expressed the opinion that the soprano saxophone occupied a strange place in music in that it has never found a home in any particular genre. As the soprano is now featured more heavily in John’s own playing, and also is heard extensively on Art Music I asked if his opinion may have changed over time, and about his own relationship with the instrument. “The soprano saxophone is difficult to play well, and has an entirely different technique to the tenor, with which it's usually paired in jazz because it happens to be in the same key,” he explains. “It's the purest acoustic construction (not needing a 'curve' in the pipe), and needs very careful and refined control, similar to the oboe. Unless it's practiced extremely thoroughly and for a long time, the results will always be approximate. However, I've given up making aesthetic or genre-busting statements about it - the audience either enjoys the results of your efforts to play it, or they don't. The fact is that you can either go the purist route, which I suppose I represent, or not - but the fact is that some of the most influential players of the soprano that I enjoy aren't 'purist' as such - Wayne Shorter's solo on 'Face on the Bar-room Floor' on Weather Report's Sporting Life album and Archie Shepp on 'Steam' from Attica Blues are two of the most moving utterances I've ever heard from the soprano. They are not 'purist' playing. Talking about 'instrumental styles' and 'music' in the same paragraph is dangerous and probably boring to read, as you end up going down blind alleys that you regret in years to come.”Returning to the album, our thoughts turn to the longest suite ‘Arcadia’ a trio with Pavel Šporcl on violin and pianist, Steve Lodder. The intensity of the interplay between the three musicians is staggering, so have the three of you played together much as a trio? “No,not at all really” comes the reply. Elaborating, Harle continues “Pavel guested on an album I produced for EMI Classics in Tokyo called 'Morricone Paradiso' and I thought his free gypsy-style violin would be perfect for ‘Arcadia’. We rehearsed for 4 hours on a Saturday, played it in concert the next day, and then recorded it on the Monday. He was at home in Prague by 9pm on Monday. Fast. It focusses the mind.”

Another important aspect of the album is the association with Marc Almond with whom Harle has been working with of late. For those of us whose only prior knowledge of the vocalist was from hearing him with eighties pop band, Soft Cell, Almond’s performance is quite a revelation. With saxophonist and singer apparently coming from totally opposite sides of the musical spectrum so to speak, how did your collaboration with Marc begin I enquire? “I heard Marc's album Feasting withPanthers, and thought that the passion in the voice was something I hadn't heard for a long time - perfect for my David Hockney songs”, John replies. “ A record company set up a meeting, and I was delighted to meet a serious, modest and collaborative man. His breadth and range is incredible and he is electric in the recording studio. He just gives and gives. I record every take he sings, and on listening back, each is different and has something to offer. Amazing energy.” And you have plans to take the collaboration further? “’After Art Music, it seemed natural that we do a whole album together. The Tyburn Tree is in production at the moment, and will be released in February next year, along with a tour of the album, starting at The Barbican on March 2nd. It’s a series of twelve songs about the darker side of London's history - the Victorian East End, vampires and peculiar goings-on. There's a great band involved - John Paricelli and Neill MacColl on guitars, Dudley Phillips on bass, Steve Lodder on Keyboards and Martyn Barker on drums. Watch this space!”